Dust by Eva Everson (epub e reader .TXT) 📕

all the right circles, dressed in all the right clothes, and sent their girls to all the right schools—from preschool on.

But what they didn’t have was passion. Not an inkling of it. What Mary Helen had declared as chastity before wedlock had turned to duty in marriage. For all their years together, he’d never once made her cry out. Never once felt the earth move in the throes of their lovemaking. It was all … just … duty.

“You scared me,” he said, pulling the headphones off.

“Well, if you wouldn’t act like you’re still in college …”

“Did you need something?” he asked, ignoring the jab while keeping his voice in the same tone as when his secretary buzzed him or poked her head around his office door.

“You have a phone call.”

He furrowed his brow and looked at his watch. “This late?”

“Harry Miller’s secretary. She says it’s important …”

He turned his head in case heat rose to his face again, making a bigger to-do out of putting the headphones away than necessary. “I’ll take it in here,” he said.

Mary Helen left on the same chilled wind she’d most likely entered. He stepped around to the back of his desk. Picked up the handset and waited until he heard his wife on the extension. “I’ve got it,” he said, then waited for her to hang up, which she did. Loudly. “Rita?”

“Sorry to call you at home, but you said it was urgent.”

Patterson sank into his chair and it squeaked, then sighed. “I didn’t say urgent, Rita. I said as soon as you can.”

“Sounded urgent to me.”

He pulled a small notebook from one of his desk drawers, flipped it open to a clean sheet, then grabbed one of the half dozen pens scattered on the cluttered desktop. “Did you find out anything?”

“You know,” she said, her voice taunting, “only an ex-lover who still cares for you would go to all this trouble …”

“The ex part was your decision. Not mine.” And not just once either, he reminded himself. Between his wife’s frigidity and his mistress’s on-again-off-again mindset, he’d wondered at what point he’d simply lose his faculties and commit himself to a residential hospital. Preferably on a deserted island.

Or, perhaps, he could have the next best thing.

“I know,” Rita finally said, and he brought the pen upright. “You’re right.”

“As you’ve said before. So? You have information for me?”

“I do. Her name is Cindie. Cindie Campbell.”

“I know that, Rita. She’s my student.”

“Well … Dr. Thacker … I found out from her files that she came here, you may be interested to know, on Dr. Miller’s recommendation.”

A gust of breath pushed itself from Patterson’s lungs. “Harry?”

“Don’t go overboard. You and I both know Harry Miller is as faithful to his wife as a church mouse is to his cheese. When I oh-so-casually questioned Harry about her, he said he’d met her on a return trip from Tallahassee and found her—and I quote—interesting. You know Harry and his lost causes.”

“Hmmm.”

“There’s more, of course, if you’re ready.”

He poised his pen over the paper; the dim light from the desk lamp caused a long shadow to slice across the page. “Yes.”

“She’s from some little town in southwest Georgia I’ve never heard of and you probably haven’t either. Has a nearly three-year-old child who was born out of wedlock—”

“Stop. She’s only—what—eighteen? Nineteen?”

“She’ll be twenty in about two months. January twelfth, if you were thinking to buy her anything.”

“Is the child with her? Here?” Because that would change things. Most things, in fact, if not all things.

“No. The child—a little girl—lives with her father back home, according to Dr. Miller, while the object of your interest resides in a small apartment off campus with two others—a brother and a sister. And she’s working over at Rhinestones. Which means—”

“I know what it means.” Rhinestones was known for its scantily clad waitresses who flirted with the predominantly male patrons while serving tables, which meant Cindie was exposed to too many other men for Patterson’s liking.

“Patterson, please tell me you’re not thinking of doing anything stupid,” Rita said, sounding more like a sister than a woman who, once upon a time, kept him warm in bed.

Again, heat rose to his face. Rita breathing down his neck was the last thing he needed. “No, no. She’s having trouble in my class,” he said matter-of-factly. “I only want to see what I can do to help her. I thought a little background would help—would help me know where she’s coming from. It’s obvious she’s a fish out of water.”

“But such a darned pretty fish …”

Yes. Yes, she was. And she reminded him so much of Stevie, who he could never have beneath him. And a little of Dani, whom he’d most likely never see again. But her … Cindie Campbell … “What else do you have?”

“She’s a high school dropout. Got her GED before applying to DeKalb. Comes from the poorer side of town, as Billy Joe Royal used to sing it—”

“Poor.”

“What?”

“Johnny Rivers—not Royal—sang The Poor Side of Town. Not poorer.” He’d also written it, but that was beside the point.

“Well, pardon me for living.” She paused long enough for him to apologize, which he didn’t. For pity’s sake—Music of the ’60s 101. “Anyway. She got her GED, came up here on some scholarships and Dr. Miller’s recommendation and there you have it,” she fired off.

“Thank you,” he said after scribbling a few undecipherable notes onto the paper. “I owe you one.”

“You’re darned right you do.”

He closed his eyes, squeezing them as he gripped the phone’s handset tighter than need be. “I’ll see you tomorrow …”

“Patterson,” she said then, her voice whispery soft.

“What?”

“Tell Mary Helen I’m sorry for interrupting her evening.”

“Shut up, Rita.”

She laughed, then disconnected the call.

Patterson drew a circle around the initials of Cindie’s name—CC—and smiled. Everything in his life had been heading for the dumpster until two weeks ago when Little Stevie Nicks walked into his classroom. He’d seen from the first day that she was out of her element. That calculus didn’t—and